Posts by bombastic bob

What do WLinux and Benedict Cumberbatch have in common? They're both fond of Pengwin

Re: Anglophones....

or peng-gwin

Re: Use?

There's always FreeBSD...

Re: Does this mean it's finally...

If _I_ have anything to do with it, YES. And that's all I can comment at the moment...

Re: I've asked this before, and I'll ask it again ...

If you bring your own device in and let the IT guys manage it, how about THAT? And if they don't like you doing that, DOLLARIZE it - "You save $$$ per month letting me do this". I think every one of us has some old dust-collecting box with "acceptable hardware for Linux" on it.

And once you've PROVED how productive you can be with THAT, you can sell the idea of getting a BETTER one...

Re: I've asked this before, and I'll ask it again ...

Cygwin 'old in the tooth'? You make that sound like it's a BAD thing... [just fix the bugs, NO need for feature creep]

Re: I've asked this before, and I'll ask it again ...

"Shirley running your distro of choice on bare iron is cheaper/easier/faster/cleaner with far, far fewer security and update problems?"

Not only are there no licensing headaches, the *kinds* of hardware that can run Linux in a manner that has acceptable performance ('droid development notwithstanding, THAT porcine environment eats RAM and hard drive space and bandwidth worse than ANYTHING Micro-shaft, but I digress...), those kinds of systems can have >10 year old technology and still give you decent performance for Linux.

At least, that's how _I_ see it. For lots of builds you'll want faster/more cores but for general usability, I think older machines running Linux *EASILY* outperform "modern" machines with "modern" windows. [my fastest windows machine is a 3Ghz dual core; my slowest Linux machine is a 1Ghz Toshiba laptop from 2003. So yeah]

At a used-to-company everybody had a windows machine. Then us devs also had 1 or 2 extra non-windows machines. In part this started because I brought my FreeBSD laptop in, and was able to use it for development work to do things that the windows computer couldn't do. At that time Frys had inexpensive Linspire boxen available for under $200, so the company purchased several of them, and us devs then put "whatever OS" on them, typically Fedora, Debian, or FreeBSD, as "build machines". This rendered the windows machine virtually unused except for e-mail, certain documents, and occasional tests.

Re: Microsoft dreams finally come true

"Microsoft Services For Unix, the predecessor for Cygwin"

Interix/SFU/SUA - I honestly tried to make that work, from XP until it was abandoned, and all 3 naming iterations. It had X11R4 libs as I recall, an ancient version of gcc, and LOTS of trouble just trying to compile a newer gcc for it. I finally gave up, even after having made a web page. 'tar' was actually 'pax' and hard to use, even for uncompressed tarballs. Although I was able to use it for a few things (read: mangle settings and jump through hoops) I decided, after an unnecessarily long period of time, that the limited grep command line options and tarball incompatibilities and inability to even compile basic utilities and libraries just made it IMPOSSIBLE to use. And, as I recall, there was NO ssh nor scp available. And the only editor was 'vi'. yeah.

And of course, I install Cygwin on any windows system I use.for anything more than "just one thing". Downside of Cygwin is it being less convenient than Interix/SFU/SUA for integrating POSIX commands with the windows shell, and running windows programs from within the POSIX shell.

As for win-10-nic and it's subsystem for Linux, I admittedly have NOT tried it. I might have to if I create something that is intended to build everywhere with autotools, just to test it. not looking forward to THAT - I have a Win-10-nic VM set up for testing, but I haven't booted it in MONTHS... and don't want it to download/boot for 2 days just to "update" either.

For 99% of things, Cygwin does it right (even if it fights with windows on things like permission flags). 'rsync' does my backups really well (accounting stuff most of the time). For those few things it's not so good at I can just hack it some other way.

Re: Microsoft dreams finally come true

The name 'Pengwin' make me facepalm

Calling Windows 'win' was bad enough, implications obvious. I think the marketeers need to stop naming things with terms that sound like someone's making fun of them.

Well, there's this one 'cat video' (sorta) by a guy from Australia that wanted to stop cats from pissing in his back yard. He tried building a "Cat-a-pult" (complete with stuffed animal to demonstrate the concept) but it was a failure, perfect for comedy. And now 'Pengwin' which sounds just like someone is making fun of it, except it's REAL.

'Naut trio successfully dock at ISS after Soyuz rocket goes all the way

all female EVA crew

Interesting in a way. Although I'm really not impressed by things like this (first "identity" to XXX) it does sort of point out that working in space doesn't require "Male upper body strength" and it might be an interesting test to see if women are naturally BETTER at it.

When you compare things like depth perception, upper body strength, fine motor control, and the tendency (or absence therof) to take risks, men and women have different enough characteristics already.

According to THIS men have generally better depth perception, women have generally better night vision. And so on. Several things cited there.

But I suspect that overall, women will perform equally to men in space. Good thing.

Anyway I look forward to the day when it's no big deal that a man, or a woman, or someone of a particular race or religion, does something.

Welcome. You're now in a timeline in which US presidential hopeful Beto was a member of a legendary hacker crew

Re: I'd be wary of letting this sort of stuff influence your decision

It influenced my decision - from NO to HELL NO.

Re: This is awesome

I never really thought of 'Cult of the Dead Cow' with any kind of favorable opinion. Nor their members. It seems to have spawned some of what you see in the 'War Games' movie from the 80's though, or the 'Hackers' movie from the 90's. The truth is far less glamorous...

Don't forget, O'Rourke seems to have acknowledged how he STOLE PHONE TIME to access BBSs via long distance calls, as reported in the Reuters article linked from this one.

"Like thousands of others, though, he said he pilfered long-distance service 'so I wouldn’t run up the phone bill.'"

I guess _some_ of what cDc did might be considered "cool" - BackOrifice, the Tor version of the Firefox browser, stuff to scan for steganography, etc. - but O'Rourke's involvement was probably more "social" than actual learning/coding. Yeah, I'm challenging the validity of his "skillz".

And the idea that most hackers are really libertarians, and not socialists, leaves me to wonder why he plays this "both sides of the fence" game, unless he's trying to SOCIAL ENGINEER EVERYBODY into voting for him...

And, THAT would make him DISINGENUOUS, DISHONEST. Well, POLITICIAN at least.

I have nothing but pejoratives to describe people who actually use "identity politics" to cast their votes. Voting because someone has a particular sex, race, religion, whatever, is all the same kind of [insert profanity here]. Or, voting AGAINST based on the same [lack of] reason. It's worse than a single-issue voter.

Seriously, does ANYBODY look at POLICIES any more? Gotta use THINK instead of FEEL...

Re: Is the "fix" in?

hmmm, perhaps you explained why there wasn't a wider margin for Ted Cruz!!!

Re: Nice

Meh, he's still a DEMO[C,N}RAT and deserves to lose whatever election he runs in, particularly if it's against Trump.

Also read the Reuters article, and it seems he likely engaged in LONG DISTANCE PHONE FRAUD back in the 80's as a teenager. Since we're now vetting politicians (and supreme court justices) based on ACTIONS TAKEN WHILE A TEENAGER (whether actual or alleged only), I think this is pretty significant.

From what I read, he was probably more of a 'Script Kiddie' than a REAL hacker anyway. Real hackers solve unsolvable problems through unconventional means, not necessarily breaking into things nor acting like a counter-culture wannabe. You usually find them doing kernel-level stuff, devices, file systems, and network security.

Chip flinger Broadcom says its software unit's doing great. Wait, what?

Re: Odd choice...

I just wish they'd open source "video core" . Fat chance, yeah...

NASA admin: What if we switched one delayed SLS for two commercial launchers?

Re: Not sure NASA thinks the SLS is actually required.

"someone decided that NASA had to make it LOOK like it really, really wanted the SLS"

Good point.

Trump might actually build a hotel there, some day (after his 8 years in the white house). [I wonder if someone will try to change that to 'big house' - ah well I thought of it first, nya nya nya]

troll icon, because, obvious.

Re: Of course

the 'Alan Shephard' Golf course. Heh.

Re: What was good enough for Challenger...

"history's littered with engineering projects that have failed because a priority was made of a vanity political deadline"

Or in the case of the 2nd shuttle disaster, chunks of insulation that came off during launch because of ENVIRONMENTALLY "FRIENDLY" ADHESIVE (or something like that). Yeah, they went with 'politically motivated' materials, which led to a disaster. Oops.

But still the 'politically motivated' aspect is a REAL one. So good point.

Re: Just stop

I hadn't heard that... 'Senator Launch System'.

I like the idea of multiple launches with rendezvous in space. If various rocket makers can already dock with the ISS, shouldn't be too much of a problem. If they had to, maybe they could dock ALL of the parts with the ISS and assemble it all there... (although it might require a new specialized ISS module to do it).

"Inflatable hangar module". Sounds good to me. Not sure why it makes me think of blow-up sex dolls, though...

We'll help you get your next fix... maybe, we'll think about it, says FTC: 'Right to repair' mulled

Re: Worse

I had to replace a fuel pump a few years ago. The engine is fuel injected and so it was a bit expensive (but under $300 as I recall). Towards end of life, it "worked" but sometimes wouldn't start spinning, leaving my car unable to start at inconvenient times (but after sitting for a bit, it would start working again). No 'check engine' light, either. Fuel pumps need replacing after 100k miles (or 10 years) or so. Probably should schedule it if you have a car that's "paid for". That, and the mass air flow sensor.

Re: If someone burns his house or is electrolocuted after his own repairs, what about the warranty?

I expect that the manufacturers won't be held legally responsible if they've taken measures to STOP you from opening up the equipment. And a simple warning "high voltage inside" would be enough, I think, if they use normal screws (etc.) to hold the cover in place. Older TVs used to have these a LOT, and solid state TVs went to "no user serviceable parts inside" for the same kinds of reasons (liability).

For a time, people got used to the idea of popping the back off of a TV if it stopped working, then get an easter basket and fill it with tubes, take it to the drug store, and test 'em (along with fuses). Most of the time this would fix it. Then again, if they didn't put the RF and IF tubes back EXACTLY as they were before, it could cause other problems, but those older sets were kinda 'sloppy' so maybe it would just not behave *quite* as well afterwards... [RF and IF tubes rarely fail anyway, might as well not bother testing them, but not a lot of people would know that].

Anyway, we've had high voltage everywhere since electricity in the home. Common sense SHOULD include that basic knowledge.

Re: Why is voiding of warranty a problem?

" using weird screws really a big deal?"

game consoles are infamous for tri-blade screws (Nintendo) and 'torx' (XBox). I have a torx set that I purchased for 'cheap' but I still had to buy a special screwdriver to open up an XBox controller. Repairing the button silicone thingy is pretty easy, and cheap [bought a bag of them for $5 on E-bay, still have several left].

So yeah, I've run into this a few times. Sometimes you'll see 3 normal screws and one Torx screw holding the cover on. It's obvious what they intend.

(and don't EVEN get me started on repairing/replacing an XBox's DVD ROM drive...)

""suppose you bought a FORD truck and wanted to put a CHEVY motor in it"

In Cali-Fornicate-You, because of the fascist anal retentiveness of the 'smog check' laws, good luck getting your car's license renewed if you do something like that. Even a _LEGAL_ aftermarket kit [this happened to me] could be "revoked" at any time, and you might spend a few hours at a "referee" exam station to get it re-approved simply because 'smog check' techs lack the testicular fortitude to "pass" your vehicle because (even if everything else is PERFECT, which in my case it was) they see the device's serial number in the "revoked" list, and even though you bought the thing BEFORE it was "revoked", and had it installed by a nationwide exhaust/muffler business, they chicken out and "fail" you, forcing you to go to the "referee".

Worth pointing out, the "fail" costs the smog checkers money+time because apparently they can't charge you for it. But then you waste time going to the referee (which is free for the 'exam' part, but costs you TIME).

Facebook blames 'server config change' for 14-hour outage. Someone run that through the universal liar translator

Re: Not sure the comparison is valid

Downvote = you said something good about FaceBitch [and most Reg readers seem to HATE it, as they should]

but hey I get downvotes a lot, especially from my fan club. So, WELCOME ABOARD!

Re: Facebook was down?

Best. Observation. Evar.

(just how insignificant FaceBitch REALLY is, because life goes on just fine without it working)

Latest Fast Ring build grazes big red button, unintentionally ejects some Windows Insiders

the Win32 API is fine with me. ".Net" and UWP, I have serious issues with THOSE...

I haven't bothered to look at notepad in Win-10-nic, and really don't wanna boot up the VM right now...

Is Notepad in Win-10-nic a UWP application? If not, them I'm happy they're fixing it to (finally) handle UTF-8. If they can handle UNIX-style line endings, even better!

Otherwise, they ALREADY broke it by going to UWP.

Don't be too shocked, but it looks as though these politicians have actually got their act together on IoT security

"EASIER for their customers to claim damages from THEM if they get pwned."

yeah the lawsuit angle already exists, as far as I'm aware, but the burden of proof would be easier if they don't comply with the NIST standard. It's likely to be set as a precedent early on, by the first aggressive attorney that files the lawsuit.

Re: When there is bipartisan agreement

"We find an issue of security. So we send an update to the device that has a security issue"

Who is this 'we' again, exactly? And that's why what you said won't work, regardless of it being snark (or not).

Mark Twain _WAS_ right. NO legislation is better than BAD, particularly if it includes something like THAT.

We (the end users) don't need THEM (the 'we' in your proposal) CONTROLLING, DICTATING, and potentially DESTROYING our devices... or our freedom.

Also, any solution that involves the private sector ALSO involves CHOICE on the part of the consumer. Taking that freedom away through regulation is another small step towards TOTALITARIANISM.

Re: Updates

"That's how a zero-day at the manufacturer becomes a worldwide shit-storm."

Or, an "update" triggered by an MitM attack, including one that uses a VERY loud WiFi drive-by radio (using a very high gain antenna to accomplish this, not difficult) to THEN cause your home network devices to "roam" to the rogue AP (or WiFi bridge), which then becomes an MitM and THEN does things _LIKE_ inject malware in the form of firmware onto IoT devices...

Yes, it's VERY plausible. I could probably design something to do this without a whole lot of effort, by configuring a Linux laptop as a WiFi bridge, and then go from there...

That being the case, updates should NOT be mandatory, nor even SCANNED for. Maybe you get an e-mail from the company saying "We have an update to your firmware" or it appears on your phone application (if you're using one), or the web page that displays the info, and you THEN manually install the update with the ability to REVERT in case of a problem. Like that.

Yeah - mandatory updates - has worked SO well with Win-10-nic, why stop there?

I happen to _LIKE_ what Pai is doing. So I want NIST to be just as _SANE_ with their proposals.

"Why should a temperature controller need to know everything including the name of your maiden aunt."

I bet that sort of thing is just the unnecessary privacy violation of the provider's cloud service. THAT is a problem, too, but is less related to IoT security and more a problem with privacy-invading cloud services (in general).

Re: This won't stop the flow of cheap consumer Things

not every device has to have a UL listing in the USA, but you're unlikely to find one WITHOUT UL.

Similarly, there will NOW be an IoT standard, and probably a similar labeling requirement.

It will probably (like FCC testing) require you to have some 3rd party independent laboratory conduct the appropriate tests.

And several existing 'on a chip' solutions for WiFi and Ethernet will not comply for systems that have too little memory for an SSL stack (as one example), such as things built with AVR microcontrollers (read: Arduino).

In a way this opens the door for new solutions that provide basic security, like SSL and IPSec. WiFi solutions already have WPA/WPA2 support, but no SSL. So when you contact a cloud server, the traffic is still 'in the clear'. I would expect that preventing MitM attacks and packet sniffing are high on the list for IoT security.

So yeah if an addon chip could encrypt/decrypt traffic and manage the DH key exchange, that'd be nice. something that supports I2C, serial, and SPI would be ideal.

Thought you were done patching this week? Not if you're using an Intel-powered PC or server

I'm curious if any of the X11 drivers are affected by these vulnerabilities, and will Intel BOTHER to issue fixes for any of THOSE ???

Intel would do well to embrace Linux and NOT hitch their wagon to Micro-shaft, and then they'd sell MORE CHIPS because people will buy MORE new computers if they can get them, pre-installed, fully supported, WITHOUT Win-10-nic ON THEM!

But yeah, they're stuck in the mid 2000's in their thinking, I bet, and not in a GOOD way. [A _good_ way of 'naughties' thinking would be to embrace the Windows 7 and XP interfaces, but NOT the assumption that EVERY computer MUST run Windows!!!]

Boeing... Boeing... Gone: Canada, America finally ground 737 Max jets as they await anti-death-crash software patches

Re: "US, Canada finally ground 737 Max jets..."

I think they were waiting for some hard evidence. Once it arrived, *grounded*. No crashes occurred in the USA, and so the decision was "not wrong".

A grounding of all planes of that model would disrupt airline schedules, and so I think they wanted to avoid that happening. Now that there's evidence to ground them, safety first.

I read the linked article about what the system does, and there seems to be too many "it takes over" scenarios associated with it, almost like brakes in your car that apply themselves in situations where it would be smarter to accelerate or steer around something.

In the case of a stall detect in which the instrumentation had iced up (let's say), it could drive a plane into the ground, if I interpret things correctly.

Pilots are probably used to using the 'on the yoke' trim adjustment, but apparently if you flip to 'manual trim control', you have to spin a handwheel instead, NOT something a pilot would normally want to do. And going to 'manual trim' apparently disables the system, but it seems kind of *obscure* to me that THIS is the only way to shut it off.

I think an alarm should sound, warning the pilot, before this automated system kicks in. Something like "stall alert" followed by a well documented 'correction' operation that's also announced, and a BIG FAT KILL SWITCH to take it off line in case it was caused by instrument error.

Anyway, FAA will now investigate no doubt and come up with something. Boeing will have to re-certify, I bet.

Windows XP point-of-sale machine gets nasty sniffle. Luckily there's a pharmacy nearby

Re: XP still flying here ... and I'm building a Vista system.

I have an old Lenovo 'book size' computer with an Atom that came with XP on it, from around 2006. I hooked it up to a 3D printer (dedicated to it now), though it took some coaxing to get all of the drivers installed and working.

Re: WinXP machines are still for sale... @MJI

"32-bit Windows 10 runs 16-bit Windows software probably as well as WinXP."

I doubt anyone wants to hear that, nor use it (for that matter)

Re: POS?

POS can mean:

Point of Sale

Police Officer Special (type of car made for cops)

Part of Speech

Probability of Success

Post Office Square

etc.

But of course, I read 'Piece of Shit' every time, too...

Re: Perfect timing

good one

Re: Best OS Ever

A lot of people say that about 2k, but I think 2k didn't have a 64-bit version, whereas XP did.

XP with Win-10-nic's kernel, minus device driver signing, would be *PERFECT*

Re: Couldn't a Pi do the job these days ?

A 'droid version for a POS machine sounds like a good idea. I wouldn't rely on Win-10-nic for anything like a POS since it's likely to update itself at an inconvenient time and then go titsup...

Re: Yawn?

I'd like to see a version of Linux with Wine that can be swapped in for XP on these older machines [which would be a MAJOR cost savings, not having to buy a whole new machine because of XP's end of life]

Microsoft changes DHCP to 'Dammit! Hacked! Compromised! Pwned!' Big bunch of security fixes land for Windows

Re: MS DHCP - just say no

yeah but from what the article said about every device having a DHCP client, it ALMOST sounded like the DHCP CLIENT was vulnerable...

But I remember an earlier article about the server flaw, and I'm sure I snarked all over that.

I agree with the 'just say no'. The MShaft DHCP server is WORTHLESS. I just use bind for DNS with isc-dhcpd on a Linux or FreeBSD box. It has worked for me for nearly 2 decades, and was relatively painless to set up with a short RTFM session.

Boffins discover new dust clouds in the Solar System, Mercury has a surprisingly filthy ring

when I read the article's title, I thought of an old TV commercial for a product to fight "Ring around the collar". I imagined a group of naughty children chanting "Ring around the planet! Ring around the planet!"

They're BAAACK: Windows 10 nagware team loads trebuchet with annoying reminders to GTFO Windows 7

Re: Windows 10 is a Bathroom

I want to get an overall 3D Skeuomorphic look back. But the ARROGANT MILLENIAL TWITS at Micro-shaft won't do that. This means I use Windows 7 until they PRY IT FROM MY COLD DEAD COMPUTER. Or, switch to Wine or a VM on Linux for those applications I must still run.

But of course, for the Start Menu itself, you knew about the old 'Classic Start Menu' replacements, right? They still exist, though some of the names have changed... was one called 'Classic Shell' but I don't know what it is now.

I suggest they include a "Fuck OFF!" button to PERMANENTLY stop ALL nagging, but that would make too much sense...

(yeah I haven't run windows update on my 7 boxen and VMs in a while, now, and dno't plan on it anyway, I never surf the web on them, they work fine as-is, and they're behind a firewall of MY OWN DESIGN. And I practice "safe surfing" on the web, from my non-windows machines and devices. Should not have any problems for a LONG time to come!)

Crew Dragon returns to dry land as NASA promises new space station for the Moon

Re: Lunar Gateway Questions

as for radiation, consider this:

a) a large tank of fuel or water would act as a radiation shield, so keep that oriented between the 'people tank' (aka living quarters) and the sun, and the radiation levels will be a LOT lower.

b) it will be a great experiment on dealing with long term space exposure to ionizing radiation, how to minimize it, maybe even how to work WITH it

A lot of people work in the nuclear industry and receive many times the average dosage of radiation that you get from living on the planet (around 100mrem per year, which is what , 1 milli-S or something). The legal limits used to be 50 times that amount for radiation workers, in the USA anyway. Worthy of mention, when I was on a sub underway my annual exposure was about 50% lower, even though I lived/worked within 100 feet of an operating nuclear reactor. All of that steel and the ocean itself was a pretty good radiation shield.

So yeah given a properly designed space station, the presence of fuel tanks and water tanks and metal between you and the sun, and possible additional shielding on the living quartes, it should work pretty well.

But yeah you'll get more radiation. Just monitor it, as is done in the nuclear industry, and keep it well below established limits, and everyone will be fine.

coolness factor alone is a reason to go to the moon.

Also, it's an un-mined resource of minerals. It's a fair bet someone will find gold, platinum, rare earth materials, and other (similar) things there. When it becomes financially viable to mine the moon, it will be mined. And the things we want will be a) closer to the surface, and b) unclaimed by governments so you don't have to deal with international politics to get to the resources and bring 'em home.

"I'd be surprised if there was the infrastructure in space for that many people to have anywhere to go after they were launched."

Just as aircraft capable of carrying 100 people can ALSO carry a few people [and a LOT of cargo], I would expect that the plans are to bring lots of 'people + cargo' for a few years to construct something _LIKE_ the '2001 A space Odyssey' spinny station. And at that point, it will make sense.

You got to be a bit of a visionary to connect the dots.